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TV Rants April 2, 2017

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I think it is a crying shame that so many old folks have nothing to look forward to. Nothing to live for. They slouch around with a hang-dog been-there done-that look on their faces that would make a coyote upchuck the rotten deer he'd had for breakfast. I, however, have gone out of my way to not do everything. I have saved some new and exciting thrills for my 90s. I eagerly look forward to my 90s, for many exotic culinary pleasures there await me. I have put them off for over 80 years so that when I am 90 I can enjoy for the first time quiche and all the other delightful hippy foods unknown at my mother's table.

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2. Old people don't know much of anything. Of course, I'm speaking for myself. But I am old, which means that I am still easily amazed by the way young people think. When I was a kid we were getting 100 dollars a month for being in the Coast Guard. Imagine how you'd feel if your boss tripled your present salary. That's the way we'd knew we’d feel when we got out of teachers college, because teachers were getting almost 300 dollars a month. We wondered how in the world we'd able to spend 300 dollars a month. That was three thousand dollars a year. We'd be rich. You could buy a house and a barn on an acre of land for $3500.
One day I was walking down that little side street that leads to the public landing in Camden, when a very tall boy said to me, "You're The humble Farmer. I listen to you on the radio."
We talked of this and that until the inevitable topic of going south for the winter came up. He was going south for the winter. To Florida? No, the Caribbean --- to cook on a boat. Good duty. I suppose you're willing to do it for next to nothing just to have a room and meals down there where it's warm. Oh no. The pay is quite good. What do you call good? Oh, 800 to a thousand a week. 800 to a thousand a week! How do you get a job like that? See all those boats down there? ---- and he pointed at the yachts moored over on the other side of Camden harbor. You just walk alongside and ask if they need a chef. I am a chef. I studied how to be a chef.
My conversation with this kid set me right back on my heels. Many people who own businesses have told me that it is impossible to find help --- unless they hire someone away from their competitors by paying higher wages. Someone their competitor has already trained. I was just told by a man that the agency in Rockland was unable to find a young person who would work for him. And it’s probably because here's a bright kid who lives within a mile of me who takes it for granted that he can earn a thousand a week all winter on a boat in the Caribbean.
I found it hard to believe. I said, "How can you get a thousand a week cooking on a yacht?" And he said, "There are more people with money than there are cooks."

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3. Because I could never afford to have children, I’m constantly amazed by the short-sighted and off-hand manner in which parents treat their little ones. They talk to children as if they were children. If I had a child I would employ linguistic constructs conducive to the child’s social development and economic advancement. I once read that an anxious hostess who scalded a five-year-old Aldous Huxley with tea enquired as to his condition. He reportedly replied, “Madam, the pain has somewhat abated.” Wouldn’t even a below average child quickly absorb the language employed by his parents? Another thing I don’t understand is the games children are encouraged to play. My wife is teaching a grandchild to play cribbage. Wouldn’t thinking grandparents teach the child to count cards so she would be able to support them in their old age?

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4. I don’t know how many pair of reading glasses I lost last summer. When I bend over to pick rhubarb, they fall out of my pocket when I’m not looking and are not seen again until the lawnmower runs over them in the fall. Today I happen to be wearing a shirt with a fold-over tab of cloth and a button on the pocket. The glasses couldn’t fall out. Which made me think that all I have to do is put a safety pin on my shirt pocket when I get up in the morning. I pass this along to you as a public service because even though I might not get another 40 years of value out of this glasses saving information, I hope that you might.

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5. We went to an open house. My wife Marsha, The Almost Perfect Woman, was right in her glory as there is nothing she enjoys more than meeting new people or old friends and chewing over the state of the social union. The most heart-warming story she came home with was from the indulgent mother of a wanna-be musician. More than anything, her son wants to be a musician, but he either lacks that extra talent that would enable him to survive on his earnings as a musician, or else the demand for his particular instrument is not enough to keep him going. I am not privy to the details. Nevertheless, he loves playing so much that he is not distracted by the hopelessness of ever becoming a self-supporting full time musician, and he continues to play evenings whenever he can. Fortunately, he is able to sustain himself by his day job as a neuro-surgeon.

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6. Here’s something my Luddite friend Cochise said to me one day. Cochise lives way north of Kingfield and he was one of my faithful listeners for many years. “When they can teach a kid how to split a cord of wood on a computer I’ll get one.” Cochise says he could be a judge. He says to be a good judge you should have some experience on the other side of the bench.

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7. When I went into the Maine State Automobile Registration office to get a paper for a friend, I was surprised by the large crowd of people waiting there. There was a sign that said, "Take a number." Then you wait for them to get around to you. This is a result of downsizing. You've heard about downsizing. Downsizing means getting rid of useless bureaucrats to save the taxpayers money. Most people feel good when they hear about it. But now we are downsized to the extent that when you call a government office to try to find out about something, you get an answering machine which refers you to yet another answering machine. So it is now virtually impossible to find out about anything, and when we go in to register a car we take a number and wait. Perhaps you're not old enough to remember when it was fashionable to laugh at the long waiting lines they had in Russia. We always saw pictures of the people waiting in long lines, and underneath it would say, "This is what it's like to live under Communism." The next time you have to stand and wait, remember that it is downsizing that has advanced our country to the kind of lines that the Russians were complaining about 40 years ago.

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8. Because I’m often allergic to the smell of food in my mouth, unless I waterpick and scrape my tongue immediately after eating, I’m likely to cough, cough, cough. One noon I was finishing up my postprandial routine before the mirror when I noticed that I was scraping green slime off my tongue. And the thought immediately flashed through my mind, “Well Robert, just remember that a bit of green on your tongue is not the last time today you’re going to be reminded of the fact that you just ate a pound of fresh asparagus.”

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9. Having old age catch up to you is a terrible thing. I was a hypochondriac all my life until I was 79, and then, bang, all of a sudden I got sick.

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10. Anyone who lives in Maine knows that there are two basic schools of thought when it comes to putting on your sweater. You can either hang onto your shirt cuffs or you can let the sweater drag them way up over your elbows. Every morning when I put on my sweater I am faced with this ubiquitous metaphysical problem. Should I cast my lot with the cuff holders or should I join those who don’t mind their shirt cuffs pulled up above the elbow. The reason I have never taken a stand might suggest to an unbiased observer that one way is no better than the other. The difference between the two philosophies is so meaningless and insignificant; I'm surprised the two camps have never gone to war.

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